Chapter Thirty-Five: Holden

I’ve found the comm logs,” Naomi said as Holden and Miller drifted into the room behind her.

Holden put a hand on her shoulder, pulled it back, and hated that he’d pulled back. A week earlier she’d have been fine with a simple gesture of affection like that, and he wouldn’t have been afraid of her reaction. He regretted the new distance between them only slightly less than he would have regretted not saying anything at all. He wanted to tell her that.

Instead, he said, “Find anything good?”

She tapped the screen and pulled up the log.

“They were hard-core about comm discipline,” she said, pointing at the long list of dates and times. “Nothing ever went out on radio, everything was tightbeam. And everything was doublespeak, lots of obvious code phrases.”

Miller’s mouth moved inside his helmet. Holden tapped on his face shield. Miller rolled his eyes in disgust and then chinned the comm link to the general channel.

“Sorry. Don’t spend a lot of time in suits,” he said. “What’ve we got that’s good?”

“Not much. But the last communication was in plain English,” she said, then tapped the last line on the list.